


Yakekomu

by deepestbluest



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Angst, Bathing/Washing, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:53:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27401527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepestbluest/pseuds/deepestbluest
Summary: Madara is sprawled across the fire escape when Hashirama comes home. It's too cold to be outside without a coat, but Madara is shirtless except for the blood he's covered in, which is a poor substitute.
Relationships: Senju Hashirama/Uchiha Madara
Comments: 12
Kudos: 67





	Yakekomu

**Author's Note:**

> Yakekomu: (n) in bonsai, refers to a trunk that is dying toward the root from the wound mark after a thick branch is cut out or runs dry ([x](https://bonsai.shikoku-np.co.jp/en/word/2009/04/post-176.html))
> 
>  _Massive_ thanks to jessicamiriamdrew for taking a look at the first draft

Madara is sprawled across the fire escape when Hashirama comes home. It's too cold to be outside without a coat, but Madara is shirtless except for the blood he's covered in, which is a poor substitute. 

The sight makes Hashirama's heart ache, but he doesn't say anything as he steps outside.

He doesn't say anything as he picks Madara up and carries him into his apartment.

He doesn't say anything as Madara's blood-soaked boots leave a trail across the wood floor.

Madara mumbles something unintelligible as Hashirama half-carries him to the tub. He tries to help but nearly drives Hashirama into a wall instead.

Hashirama catches himself in time and gets them to the bathroom without incident.

Madara gets himself oriented enough to sit on the edge of the tub and stay upright on his own. The effort makes shallow cuts reopen, but he doesn't seem to notice.

That’s what makes him so dangerous, Hashirama supposes. The city thinks he’s immortal for good reason; everything that should stop Madara only slows him down. 

If Konoha at large knew how much he’s survived, it would only make him more frightening.

“I just needed to catch my breath for a minute,” Madara lies. His voice is barely a rasp, and he doesn't open his eyes. “Don't worry. I made sure nobody followed me.”

Hashirama, who’s used to their routine and has already finished pulling Madara’s socks and shoes off, reaches up and unbuttons Madara’s jeans. “As always, you misunderstand what I’m concerned about. Or are you just being difficult?”

Madara chuckles.

It sounds like it hurts.

“Well?” Hashirama prods, drawing Madara’s zipper down. He’ll do what he can when he gets there. “Which is it?”

“Who knows? Maybe it's both.”

Hashirama swallows the urge to scold him. It's late, there's a concerning rattling sound when Madara inhales, and it wouldn't work.

Nothing Hashirama does works.

He tries anyway.

“Will you at least tell me how this happened? I can work better if I know how creatively you got stabbed.”

Madara lets his head loll against the wall. “I wonder.”

"You really don't know, do you?"

"There were a lot of options."

Hashirama chooses not to press. Madara puts his body through the wringer, but he can't do what he wants if it isn't sound. Obfuscating would be counterproductive.

“Hashirama."

"What is it? Did you remember something helpful? You aren't going to tell me you feel like you got cut by another poisoned blade, are you?"

"Your brother paid me a visit yesterday.”

Hashirama freezes. “You saw Tobirama?”

“He had some information about someone I’m looking for.” Madara tilts his head, considering. “He looked healthy for someone who spends all his time in front of a computer.”

He's doing Hashirama a kindness. Hashirama's only surviving brother is, on paper, not surviving. For more than a year, Hashirama had thought Tobirama died in a firefight; the body not being returned had been explained as the remains not being retrievable. Hashirama hadn't had any reason not to believe it. Tobirama had been acting strange, and he'd always been better at starting fights than preventing them.

If Madara hadn't stumbled into Hashirama’s clinic and kept coming back, Tobirama wouldn't have gotten so spooked he checked on Hashirama in person.

Without Madara, Hashirama might never have known his little brother is alive.

Tobirama had let Hashirama believe he was alone, and even now, he won't even leave a sign so Hashirama knows that the people he's running from haven't caught him.

His absence keeps Hashirama awake at night.

Kawarama and Itama are dead, but at least Hashirama had seen and buried their bodies. If Tobirama dies, there won't be a body, only that absence. Hashirama will spend the rest of his life waiting for it to end, hoping to see his brother who will never return.

Madara and Tobirama aren't friends, but Tobirama doesn't avoid Madara like he does Hashirama.

“Thank you,” Hashirama says.

He can't help but think of photos on Madara’s desk in the tomb that used to be his home. None of Madara’s siblings is alive. He was supposed to die with them, but here he is.

Madara shrugs as he tilts his weight onto one hip, then the other, so Hashirama can slide his blood-soaked clothes down his legs. 

“He's less annoying now that he knows I’m not thinking about killing you in you sleep. I probably owe you.”

His lips quirk, and Hashirama lets himself relax a little. Madara can't be too badly injured if he can joke.

“More importantly, you'll owe my landlord a new bathroom soon.” Hashirama draws his hands up one of Madara’s legs, starting at the ankle. “How much of the blood is yours?”

“Enough to make me think I should come see you.”

“Too much, then.” Hashirama shakes his head, and his fingers catch on a wide, deep cut on the back of Madara’s leg. “Did someone try to hamstring you?”

Madara huffs. “They did better than try.”

Hashirama shakes his head and gathers chakra in his hands, guiding it into Madara’s body and knitting the flesh back together. Madara has been battered so much that Hashirama finds himself forced to weave Madara back together with scar tissue.

It's faster than natural healing, but it's messier. Healing other people requires direction, and their own chakra can interfere. Madara’s chakra in particular resists being healed.

If he would just stay still for a month or two and recover, Hashirama could take the time to heal Madara fully. The scar tissue that's building up is making Madara’s gait stiff; Hashirama could work on breaking it up.

“Be gentler with it for at least a week,” Hashirama cautions. “I can undo most of the damage, but if you're too rough, it will open again and I’ll have a harder time healing it later.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Which means you'll leave here at full tilt.”

Madara doesn't deny it.

He never does. He doesn't lie or obfuscate. The terror he brings isn't in the fear of what may or may not be real; it's the certainty that he's coming.

Finished with the first major wound, Hashirama resumes checking Madara’s body. Mostly he finds bruises; Madara’s arms are a mess even with Hashirama’s intervention. It's a wonder that the worst that happened to his face is a black eye. He might have bitten through his lip as well, but the blood there looks more like a smear than a trail.

It's impossible to tell.

Madara hums softly as Hashirama moves onto Madara’s other leg. His eyes have fallen shut, and for once, it looks like he might actually get some rest.

Hashirama silently continues his work.

He can feel places where Madara’s body healed poorly. Flesh and bone alike have been damaged and never put together. Hashirama has had to skip all of these time and time again, and he's going to have to continue skipping them.

Madara doesn't have the patience to let pain dissipate. The lung that got punctured a year ago and the memories of his brother that keep him in the past may as well be open wounds.

There are days when Hashirama is certain Madara doesn't want to heal.

There are nights when he's certain Madara is trying but can't figure out what to feel if not pure anger.

It's been nearly two years of looking after Madara like this, and Hashirama has almost accepted that what Madara wants doesn't matter. He's so deep in this cycle of murder and retribution that he isn't thinking of choosing for himself.

Tobirama would tell Hashirama to stop loving ghosts, but Tobirama is a ghost now, too- he'd say it anyway, but what can he do about it?

Only Mito is left, and after their engagement fell apart, Hashirama has barely seen her. He doesn't blame her for keeping her distance; after all, he's doing the same.

When he reaches Madara’s head, Hashirama confirms that the blood there isn’t from a head wound, but there are more concerning things. Under all his hair, Madara’s skull is cracked. 

“You're supposed to tell me if they hit your head.”

Madara coughs a laugh. “I got distracted.”

“In the moment?”

“On the way here.”

“I know you survived getting shot in the head, but direct trauma like that isn't the only danger,” Hashirama reminds him, throat tight. Madara is lucky it isn't worse. As it is, Hashirama has to fight just to ease the swelling, and his work can't end there.

When Madara's head is finally back in one piece, Hashirama pulls back so he can watch Madara’s expression as he asks, “What could possibly distract you so much you forgot to tell me about a head wound?”

One side of Madara’s mouth twitches. “Something I wish I could stop thinking about.”

“That doesn't answer my question.”

“I suppose it doesn't.” Madara opens his eyes. “You should let me die out there, you know. It would be kinder.”

“To you?”

“To everyone. You're putting innocent people at risk by letting me walk free.”

He's right and he knows he is.

“Can you wash up on your own, or do you need me to help?”

For once, Madara doesn’t accuse him of avoiding the problem. “You may as well. Do you still have that soap from last time? The honey one?”

“I do.” About to get up, Hashirama pauses. “Was it a problem?”

Madara shakes his head. “No, it just smelled nice.”

“Then let's get you cleaned up so you can smell nice, too.”

“What, I don't smell nice right now?”

Hashirama finishes getting to his feet. “You don't.”

Madara huffs, but he reaches back and turns on the tap. It takes the water some time to get hot in this apartment, so Hashirama busies himself collecting Madara’s clothes and burying them in the trash. He grabs a soft washcloth, lays his rattiest towel within reach of the tub, plucks the soap Madara likes out of the dish in the shower caddy and the shower head out of its holder, then steps out of his own pants and sits on the edge of the tub.

They don't talk, but Madara lets Hashirama massage the spot on his skull that just healed. A scar is already forming there

Eventually, the water gets warm enough that Hashirama plugs the drain and Madara eases himself into the tub.

The water turns pink the moment his skin touches it.

A shower would be better, but it would be dangerous.

They don't do this often, but as they have with so many things, they fall into step quickly.

Hashirama hands the shower head to Madara and diverts the water to it. With Madara directing the spray, Hashirama is free to use both hands to wash Madara’s hair.

It's so long and thick that he'd assumed it would be difficult to wash, but it’s so soft that it untangles easily with his fingers. He works a squirt of shampoo into a lather, then works the lather through Madara’s hair.

Touching him is a strange thing. Madara likes people. He doesn't invite them to get close to him, but he does like them.

Hashirama can't think of a moment outside the photographs in the deserted Uchiha home when he saw someone touch Madara without violence. After all the death lies he's survived, Madara should be more wary, but he leans into Hashirama as if they’ve been close all their lives.

He comes to Hashirama like a bird migrating.

When the water runs clean, Hashirama picks up the conditioner and repeats the process.

Looking at Madara like this, flushed from the heat, soaking wet hair plastered to his head, Hashirama could forget who Madara is and what he's done. He could forget the grim work Madara has assigned to himself. He could forget everything and give into the urge to lean in and kiss Madara.

He can't give Madara to the police. He can't fix Madara’s brain so it won't trap him in the cycle of reliving the day his brothers were murdered in front of him. He can't do anything except take the shower head from Madara, wash the conditioner out, redirect the water to the tap, and lay the shower head in the water.

He doesn't kiss Madara, but he wants to. He opens the bottle of a cleanser he keeps in the shower just for Madara and rubs the blood off Madara’s face instead.

This isn't a kiss, but it's something close to it.

He cups water in his palms and washes Madara clean again.

He picks up the soap and the washcloth. “Do you want me to do the rest?”

Madara nods.

So Hashirama does the rest.

He does it gently, wiping away every sign of the work done by the vigilante Madara doesn't want to be.

When he finishes, Madara says, “I can rinse off on my own.”

Recognizing the request to be left alone, Hashirama gets up. “I'll make dinner. When you're ready, take whatever you want to wear from my room.”

Madara grunts, and Hashirama heads to the kitchen.

He hears the water slosh as he gathers paper towels and disinfectant for the blood on the flood.

He's burying the paper towels with Madara's ruined clothes when he decides he has leftovers Madara might eat.

By the time Madara emerges- flushed and clean in Hashirama’s towel, a second wrapped around his head and his boots in one hand- the oven is turned down to warm and Hashirama is sitting at the table with a glass of wine.

Madara glances at the glass then raises his eyebrows. Hashirama glances at the growing puddle of water on his carpet and raises his own.

He gets an actual smile for it before Madara turns and heads for Hashirama's bedroom.

Pushing aside the urge to get up and follow him, Hashirama heads to the oven and moves the food to bowls.

Madara returns quickly. He's clad in a plain t-shirt that's too big and a pair of pants that are too long; the challenging look he gives Hashirama dares him to remark on that.

“Did you get taller?” Hashirama asks. “You only rolled the hem once.”

“Maybe you shrank.”

There's a bite to Madara’s tone, and Hashirama smiles to himself and pours him a glass.

“Pouring yourself a second before you've finished the first?” Madara asks.

“The glass on the table already is my second. This one is for you.”

“Hashirama,” Madara warns.

“If you wanted to leave, you would have grabbed some clothes and ducked out. You don't have to drink the wine if you don't want to. I can drink three.”

“Can and should are different things.”

“And?”

“And you should be more careful with yourself.”

It's Madara’s voice, but the words are the same as the last ones Tobirama said to him before returning to the dead.

“Is that a no?” Hashirama asks lightly.

“No, it's a ‘hurry up.’”

Hashirama doesn't hurry, but he doesn't have to. It's three steps from the counter to the table. Madara is already sitting, but he hasn't served himself.

There's an odd politeness to him that Hashirama can't quite figure out. It could be a remnant of the militant respect Tajima drummed into his sons, but that doesn't feel right.

He joins Madara, they say their thanks for the meal, then begin.

Madara eats quickly, happily swallowing down food from two days ago as if it's a feast, and Hashirama watches him with a warm feeling of accomplishment.

He doesn't let himself think about the realities of why Madara is so hungry. He can't fix any of it.

“Hey,” Madara says at one point, pausing to point at Hashirama's bowl. “Stop watching me and eat.”

Hashirama shakes his head but serves himself some rice and vegetables. At Madara’s warning look, he adds two slices of the chicken as well.

He takes a bite despite not being hungry, and Madara returns to his own meal.

He pointedly nudges Hashirama’s shin under the table when Hashirama goes too long without eating. Hashirama nudges the serving bowls closer to Madara but takes his bites when prompted, chewing absently between sips of wine.

Sometimes the two of them talk when Madara appears, but Hashirama is exhausted from an extended shift at the clinic and Madara doesn't seem interested in speaking.

He doesn't seem interested in his wine either, so when they get up to do the dishes, Hashirama finishes it for him.

“My brothers used to make me do this,” Madara volunteers as he dips his hands into the soapy water. “They'd beg me to do the dishes for them or conveniently disappear.”

“You spoiled them,” Hashirama surmises.

“That's what you're supposed to do, isn't it?”

Hashirama considers that, weighing it against his own brothers. “You're supposed to try.”

“The younger ones were happy to let you, but Tobirama wasn't, was he?”

“It's difficult to spoil someone who doesn't want anything you can give them.”

It sounds bitter, too bitter to say to a man who outlived all of his brothers, but Madara only shakes his head.

“There are people who don't want to be looked after, but they still want things. Perhaps he just wants to see his older brother be happy.”

He hands Hashirama a bowl, and without thinking, Hashirama accepts and rinses it and two more before it clicks.

“He told you that, didn't he? How did you get him to tell you that?”

“I was pointing a gun at him. That tends to make people chatty.”

“Madara!”

“He was pointing one at me as well. It isn't that different from a hello.”

Hashirama stares at him, briefly wondering if he drank more than he realized.

“I don't understand you.”

He's saying more than he means to.

Madara must know, but he only shrugs and hands Hashirama another bowl.

Hashirama rinses it.

“I don't understand you either,” Madara tells him. “How many times have I killed someone in front of you? You hate everything I do. What am I if not the things I do? I don't have any secrets left, Hashirama. Your brother could cut me open and root through my guts, but there's nothing else to find.”

“That isn't what your home said.”

There aren't any dishes left, so Hashirama turns and faces Madara.

Madara turns as well, facing him squarely.

The dark circles under his eyes aren't as stark as they were when Madara stumbled into Hashirama at the clinic the first time, but he still looks like he hasn't slept in years.

“When you first came back looking for revenge, everyone was shaken because they'd all known you as the man who looked after his younger brothers after your parents died,” Hashirama tells him. “You were well liked by your neighbors and their children. Even the little girl who was afraid of you said you were nice to people.

“You aren't just some murderer, Madara. The man who knew every drinking song isn't gone.”

“Is that supposed to be a good thing? There's no going back for me. I'm not going to let more people die like my brothers did. People like you can't do it. You thought you'd killed me with that knife in the woods the one time you tried, and you threw up so much I had time to get away.” Madara lifts his chin. “You want a better world. The only way to get there is to spill blood.”

It always comes back to this, but instead of demanding that Hashirama just accept that this is how things need to be, Madara lets out a long, tired breath.

“For your sake, I hope this is the last time you see me.”

He always says that, and he always means it.

“If you see Tobirama-” Hashirama stops.

What does he want to say to his little brother? A hundred things, but none of them suit Madara’s mouth.

“I’ll let him know his brother wants him to come home,” Madara finishes for him. “It won't work, but I’ll tell him. He’ll get himself in even more trouble if he forgets he's still got family waiting for him.”

Hashirama nods. “Thank you.”

“I've got to thank you for fixing me up somehow, don't I? The guys out there sure aren't going to.”

Madara quirks a sharp smile at him.

“The same could be true for you, you know,” Hashirama reminds him. “I'm not patching you up just so you can go back out there and get killed for a vendetta you'll never satisfy.”

“You've got too much heart, Hashirama. The world won't change for kindness. If it did, people like me wouldn't exist.”

Madara isn't angry, but his mood is shifting. He shrugs as if he's talking about something as certain as gravity.

Hashirama shakes his head. “Aren't you a good man, too? If you weren't, why would you care about making the world better?”

“Haven't you accused me of not knowing how else to live? Didn't you suggest the last time I was here that I won't stop because I don't want to?” Madara steps around him. “Goodbye, Hashirama. You'll have your clothes back by morning.”

In less than a minute, he's gone. The only signs he was here are the damp spot on the floor and the bloody clothes in the trash.

Madara always leaves, and Hashirama can't fix that.

He’ll keep trying. Until Madara accepts that he doesn't have to keep waging war against the world, Hashirama will keep trying. 

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I'm still emotionally invested in the Punisher in 2020. Come shame me on [tumblr](https://asotin.tumblr.com/)


End file.
